The decline and fall of Romano Prodi exposes the rottenness of Italian capitalism

The centre-left government led by Romano Prodi was put out
of its misery on the night of January 24th, when a vote of
confidence was lost by five votes in the Italian Senate. This represents yet
another step in the deepening of the never-ending Italian crisis.

He's likely to be replaced for the next few months by Franco
Marini, president of the Senate, until new elections will be held. After this
debacle, Berlusconi is likely to win again. As we predicted, the Left has
wasted years in supporting class-collaborationist policies in a coalition
government with the bourgeoisie that just paved the way for the return of
Berlusconi to power.

Who rules Italy?

Prodi is a bourgeois bureaucrat, a typical member of the
political clique groomed since the end of the Second World War by the Italian
ruling class. A long-standing member of the Christian Democrat establishment
that ruled Italy
for four decades, he was Minister of Industry in 1978, then CEO of the
state-run industrial trust IRI, president of the European Commission and twice
head of the government.

As a prime minister, he enjoyed the unstable support of a
wide coalition ranging from Rifondazione Comunista (PRC, the main Communist Party)
to small, corrupt parties of the political centre. One of those small groups
resulting from the break-up of the Christian Democrat Party in 1994, the UDEUR Party,
on January 21st withdrew its support for the coalition. This
happened after a corruption scandal brought under investigation a large part of
the Party leadership and their Secretary's family - two largely overlapping
sets of people. The scandal was about power abuses in the management of the
healthcare system, that is to say illicit money-making at the expense of the
sick.

Paradoxically enough, the Party's Secretary, Clemente
Mastella (also involved in the scandal), held the position of Minister of
Justice before resigning. After being detained, Mastella's wife declared that
alleged "secularist circles" wanted to damage her because of her firm Roman
Catholic faith...

The UDEUR got 1.4% of the votes and had just three MPs (out
of 321) in the Senate. Its main base of support is centred on a small
economically depressed and Mafia-dominated area in Southern Italy around the
town of Ceppaloni.
This town of 3,400 people is considered the political fief of the Mastella
family. And yet, this tiny gang of opportunists managed to trigger an avalanche
that decisively upset the political equilibrium of the seventh industrial power
of the world.

While this quick depiction of the state of Italian politics
suffices to show how rotten and unstable the situation is in the Peninsula, it would be very naïve to believe that the end
of "Prodism" was just the result of an unfortunate series of judicial events.
Moreover - and whatever Mastella or his wife may say - there is no logical
connection between the scandal and the UDEUR's coup de grâce against Prodi.

The government was in trouble long before the latest
corruption scandal. Just a few days before, another small opportunist group in
the centre of the political spectrum, led by Lamberto Dini (former IMF Executive
Director, former Minister of the Treasury under Berlusconi, then head of the
government in 1995, then a supporter of Prodi), had declared that Prodi's time
was over. In order to give our readers a complete picture, we could just
mention the fact that also Dini's wife, a wealthy woman who inherited colossal
vested interests in South America, has been involved in a bankruptcy fraud
trial and in December 2007 got 28 months in prison - but was cleared by a
general pardon.

These are the kind of rulers that capitalism has to offer to
help Italy
out of its quagmire.

The Left: seduced and abandoned

Dini pointed out that a new government was needed to
implement the "reforms" needed by the country, i.e. to persevere in the attacks
on the working class required by the Italian bosses, while at the same time
cornering the Left.

Prodi's reply was that he was already performing that task very
well - and this is true. The retirement system, for example, has undergone a counter-reform
during 2007. Alitalia is being privatised. The expansion of the US military base in Vicenza got the green light. A rotten racist
Security Act was worked out and used against immigrant workers and to foster
national divisions within the working class.

Many more examples could be provided. All of these measures
have been supported, either uncritically or with some minor remarks, by all
left-wing parties and unions. Thus, what is happening is that the loss of
credibility suffered by left-wing parties during the Prodi government is being used
to push the country's centre further to the right. This is precisely the
opposite of what the left-wing bureaucrats have been promising their rank and
file, i.e. influencing the coalition's policies in a progressive direction.

This is the result of the failure to provide a class
analysis of the Italian puzzle. The republic has been in a permanent unstable
state for several years, as a consequence of the weakness of Italian
capitalism. The ruling class is confronted with serious difficulties in finding
a way out without excessively provoking the working class. The proletariat is
still powerful and very militant, albeit fettered by the dead weight of the
bureaucratised leaderships of the unions and the Left.

This weakness reflects itself in the need for the creation
of huge strata of parasitic formations on top of the fragile economy,
especially within the state apparatus. The Italian bourgeoisie has always been
forced to rely on several different parasites: the Christian Democracy and now
its offspring that comprises no less than 6 distinct parties (some allied with
Berlusconi, some with his opponents and some... with the best buyer), as well
as on the mighty criminal organisations - profoundly merged with the state
apparatus and the personnel of the bourgeois parties -, the (heavily
state-subsidised) Church, support from foreign imperialists (NATO and EU) etc.
This created a historical tendency toward fragile governments, easily
blackmailed by small groups and lobbies with vested interests.

A sinking ship

Since 1989, alongside drastic changes in the World Order,
the most farsighted section of the bourgeoisie has attempted to create a
cheaper and more effective system of domination. The so-called Second Republic
according to their plans would be modelled after countries like the USA, with
federalism, a 2 party system, a strong stable government and a weak parliament,
a mighty professional army etc. That would entail an important international
role for Italy.
They fundamentally failed this task, and Italy
is presently "the sick man of Europe", as The Economist explained in 2005.

What is likely to have happened in this last chaotic fiasco
is that Mastella & Co. have taken the scandal as "a pretext to do something he had been planning for a long time",
as former anti-corruption judge Saverio Borrelli put it.

The coalition had exhausted all its energy a long time ago.
The formation of the large Democratic Party (aiming for 30% of the vote) out of
the merger of the Social Democrats (the Left Democrats) with some remnants of
the Christian Democrats has only made things worse, because all the small
parties immediately felt in danger.

Their worst nightmare came true when the new leader of the
Democratic Party Walter Veltroni entered into a deal with Berlusconi in order
to change the electoral law. They wanted to do that in such a way as to
guarantee a big bonus to the bigger party of the winning coalition. That would
undermine the future of all other parties, not only in the centre but also on
the left. Such was the result of Rifondazione's support for the anti-Berlusconi
coalition: the coalition leaders making agreements with Berlusconi precisely to
wipe the Communists out of the parliament! And yet, that wasn't enough to cause
any reaction by the leadership of the PRC, completely paralysed by the fear of
harming the government.

On top of this, Rome's mayor Veltroni, just a few days before
the crisis, openly announced the intention of having the Democrats run alone in
the next elections, without any pre-established alliance. This provocative
statement had an immediate destabilising effect, pushing the minor bourgeois
parties into action.

Splits at the top

Most of the top echelons of the ruling class currently
support the Democrats. Nevertheless, the political system has a dynamic of its
own and the bourgeoisie's control on parliament is very loose and indirect.
Berlusconi can buy a few MPs very easily, as could Prodi. Indeed, Prodi
apparently managed to buy an UDEUR MP by hiring a friend of his in a government
agency a few hours before the vote of confidence. However, that wasn't enough
to save his government. As a reprisal, that MP was beaten and insulted in the
very parliamentary hall by the other UDEUR MPs. The images of a Senator of the
Republic spitting on another Senator's face has been broadcast by all TV
stations, giving another good example of the rock-bottom level reached by Italy
in its downwards spiralling decline.

The ruling class itself is divided, as graphically shown by
two typical national representatives of Big Business. One is Silvio Berlusconi,
the clownish histrionic tycoon, himself the leader of the right-wing coalition
and the richest man in the country. On the other hand, we have Luca Cordero di
Montezemolo, a cultivated and cultured gentleman, president of Ferrari since
1991, president of FIAT since 2005 and president of the almighty industrial
employers' organisation, Confindustria. This billionaire of aristocratic
lineage is often boldly intervening on political issues, usually with a
position quite similar to the Democratic Party. Many expect him to directly
enter the political arena and eventually be elected head of the government
(after all, didn't the president of Venezuelan Fedecámaras do the same after
the anti-Chávez coup in 2002?).

The richest capitalist and the most influential capitalist
of the country have two opposite opinions on the fall of the government.

Berlusconi wants immediate elections because he is likely to
win. He opposes the new prime minister proposed by the President of the
Republic, Franco Marini. He is also reported to have threatened to organise a
mass mobilisation in Rome - unscrupulously
defined by Berlusconi himself as "a march on Rome", like the Fascist demonstration in 1922
that led Mussolini to power... with His Majesty's consent.

Montezemolo has defined what happened in the Senate as "an
unacceptable and indecorous show". He has attacked the political caste, using
the example of Sicily's
governor, who has just been sentenced to five years for having Mafia
connections. His recipe for the country is a short-term "technical government"
that could just complete the task of changing the electoral law, because "we need big reforms" but "citizens must decide, not the parties".
This translates as a demand for a government supported by an unelected and
unprincipled coalition of parties from the whole political spectrum - so much
for his democratic concern for "citizens decide" as opposed to "parties
decide"! The short-term government should work out a new law to give an
artificial majority to the next anti-worker government. And who knows, maybe in
the meantime this "technical" or "institutional" (i.e., non-political)
government could also pass some laws that the entrepreneurs need so much...

This same position of delaying the elections and arranging
some sort of a "limited-scope government" has the support of the Democratic
Party, the bishops' organisation - it may sound strange outside Italy but the
bishops always give their opinion on current political issues -, the
shopkeepers' association, the presidents of both wings of parliament, one of
which is the former secretary of Rifondazione Comunista, Fausto Bertinotti, and
even a part of the right-wing coalition.

Reformist nonsense is
no way out!

In the early 1990s, "technical governments" (Amato, Ciampi,
Dini) have been responsible for passing the worst cuts against welfare,
pensions, school, healthcare etc. Although Marini had been in the past the
leader of the Christian Democrat trade union confederation (CISL), he is indeed
another old face of bourgeois politics. He will be no better. This makes
support for this new government given by some on the left, namely Rifondazione
Comunista's leaders, even more absurd.

The official position of the party is now in favour of a
government lasting a few months with the only purpose of making a new electoral
law. When alleged Communists take the same stance as the leader of the
employers' organisation, something bad is happening. And, usually, the ones who
are getting it wrong are not the bosses.

After having dissipated a good deal of credibility by being
part of a bourgeois government, Rifondazione would really reach its lowest
point should it support the measures taken by an "institutional" government. Though this be madness, yet there is method
in't. The rationale behind this madness is pretty simple to explain,
provided one recognises that it is not a class rationale: it is a bureaucratic,
reformist rationale. They are basically hoping to obtain an electoral law that
could encourage the political experiment they have been planning over the past
year.

In fact, since the formation of the Democratic Party, Rifondazione's
leading faction has pursued the gradual dismantling of any remnant of a
Communist Party in Italy.
Their proposal is the creation of a new party through the merger of
Rifondazione and the other Communist Party (PdCI) with the Greens and the Democratic
Left, a Social Democrat organisation led by the Minister of Universities and
tightly linked with the centre-left coalition.

This attempt echoes what the Spanish Communist Party did by
creating Izquierda Unida and also the recent attempt by the French Communist
leaders to liquidate the party.

The bureaucracy has an idea it cannot disclose: a Draconian
electoral law could be instrumental in forcing the recalcitrant rank and file
into accepting the liquidation, and a forceful and unprincipled merger with the
Greens and the Social Democrats, for the sake of preserving a sizeable
parliamentary presence. If this implied the abandonment of the hammer and
sickle in the electoral logo, it would cause shock waves among the party
members.

On the front page of Rifondazione's daily paper, Liberazione, issued the day when Prodi
was expected to fall, Rina Gagliardi wrote an article with the title Why we lost the challenge. The
"challenge" she talks about was indeed impossible to win: having a bourgeois
government bring about progressive and pro-worker policies. Whoever accepts a
challenge that is impossible to win cannot be considered much good.

Comrade Gagliardi's explanation of the reason why water has
not been turned into wine is not very good either. In her opinion, Prodi didn't
manage to be a radical leftist leader because "as a consequence of the lack of any attempt to reform our politics [...] he has submitted himself to the
Establishment and the pressure of the lobbies". Oh really? He has not been
progressive because he has been conservative because he failed in being
progressive. The idea that Prodi is part of
the Establishment doesn't seem to enter her mind.

Apart from this gobbledygook, this article is interesting
because it shows the complete refusal by the Left's bureaucracies to recognise
what is going on and to draw the necessary conclusions. The leaders of
Rifondazione don't go to the point of directly surrendering to the ruling class,
like Veltroni and the former majority of the Left Democrats did; nevertheless,
they cannot accept to break with the bourgeoisie - or, in their own language,
they cannot help submitting themselves to the Establishment and the pressure of
the lobbies. They criticise the formation of the Democratic Party but they feel
there is no alternative to an alliance with the same Democratic Party.

Rina Gagliardi writes: "[...] it's not legitimate to draw any sharp
conclusion - like 'no more in government with the bourgeoisie'". Why not?
This is exactly the "sharp" conclusion that the best militants of Rifondazione,
the trade unions and the other left-wing organisations are drawing at this
moment!

So, what is the solution according to comrade Gagliardi? A
few lines below, the Holy Grail is found: the way out is "the new political subject", i.e. the unification with less
militant organisations that are even closer and more tightly connected with the
collapsed Prodi government and the Democratic Party.

As far as the International Marxist Tendency is concerned,
we will do our best precisely to promote this rational and crystal-clear
principle among the ranks of the Left and Rifondazione itself: no more in government with the bourgeoisie!

A social powder-keg

While this farce is staged at the top, real tragedies happen
below.

The casualisation of labour has increased steadily in the
last decade, as well as the worsening of work conditions and the uncontrolled
growth of overtime.

The most dramatic results of this situation have been seen
in a Turin
steel factory, owned by the German multinational ThyssenKrupp, on December 6th
and 7th, 2007. In an appalling accident, seven workers were
seriously injured, burnt alive by a wave of hot oil. All of them eventually
lost their lives over the following weeks.

The wrath and rage of Turin's working class boiled over when
it was reported that some of these workers had been working for 12 hours at the
time of the accident and that the proper safety measures had not been taken by
the company. Fire extinguishers in the place where the fire began were out of service.
However, "somebody" suddenly tried to replace them a few hours after the deadly
accident...

A mass general strike has been locally called for, with a
big protest march where an enraged mood was prevailing. The flowers sent by the
company to the victims' families were destroyed by angry workers.

To further aggravate ThyssenKrupp's position, a private
dossier written by some company managers was leaked to the newspapers. It
contained a report with derogatory statements against the workers killed in the
accident and their colleagues. It emerged from the dossier that ThyssenKrupp
was waiting for the TV publicity to calm down in order to hit the surviving
workers with disciplinary measures. The charge would be to have released public
declarations blaming their colleagues' deaths on the company's poor safety
standards. The dossier also complains about the "long Communist traditions" of the city that make it "unfavourable for our productive activity".

ThyssenKrupp AG is the result of the merger between two steel
companies: Thyssen and Krupp. The traditions of the Krupps are quite different
than the traditions of Turin's
workers but they also seem to have preserved their political heritage. The
Krupp Group was a key supporter of the Nazi regime and Alfried Krupp was
sentenced to twelve years (he only served eight) in the Nuremberg Trials for
the exploitation of slave labour provided by Hitler's war machine.

Even when such ominous peaks of economic horror aren't
reached, the situation is still very serious for the average Italian working class
household. The national bank has underlined that from 2000 to 2006 Italian
salaries have stagnated in real terms. In the same period, a recent statistical
study shows that prices for typical lower income families have grown up to
three times faster than the official inflation rate. This means only one thing:
the workers have been squeezed in an unprecedented way in the last years, but
this pressure will sooner or later find a channel to express itself on the
political scene.

We have already seen important mobilisations of the workers
when Berlusconi was in power and also in the recent period. When Rifondazione
and the other Communist Party called for a national demonstration to promote a
left-wing agenda for the country, the whole of Rome turned red: flags with the
hammer and sickle were everywhere in the streets, showing that thousands of
militant rank and file Communists still exist in Italy, in spite of the long
series of betrayals by their leaders.

The same happened with the metal workers' fight for the
renewal of their collective bargaining agreement: when the unions called for
strikes, the workers were always ready to fight. And yet, this movement too has
been sold out by the unions' leadership.

This is just an example of the kind of explosions we will
witness in the future. We can only imagine the effect that the current exposure
of the rottenness of Italian politics and capitalism must be having on the most
militant and conscious layers of the proletariat and the youth. Is this what we fought for?

The lack of the subjective factor, i.e. a revolutionary
leadership capable of giving this rage and this will to fight a consistent
political expression, poses a Herculean task to the Italian Marxists: connect
with the masses, their revolutionary history and their traditional parties and
unions, and prepare a socialist alternative to the rottenness of the Italian
capitalism. This is the only real way out.